Like many new waves, it seems to have started in California. About six years ago restaurant owner Jake Stockwell decided to retire and put his popular wharfside seafood bistro on the market. Six months later he was a disappointed man, frustrated with flaky would-be buyers, who misrepresented themselves and their means and intentions, and predatory property developers who only wanted the site, not the fine restaurant hed put twenty-five years of his life into building up.

So he decided to raffle it off to his customers. For $100 per ticket they could take a flyer on becoming the owner of a thriving business. Thousands took up the offer and six months later Mr Stockwell retired with a smile on his face, having turned the bistro over to a customer who vowed to keep it going in the style that had originally attracted him to eat there.

Since then, hundreds if not thousands of sellers have taken the raffle road, and some charities, like the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Society, have come to depend on raffles as a main source of income. The Society has raffled a million dollar house for each of the past three years and has always sold out the full allocation of tickets. Similarly, a number of developers have found it advantageous to promote new projects by raffling off one of their showcase homes. It draws people to the developments and raises the profile of the company.

In general, however, raffles have had mixed acceptance. First of all, there are legal pitfalls for anyone trying to hold a lottery in some states, so many have taken the form of a contest, with the property as the grand prize. Some people have done simple quiz contests, some have required letters to be written, all of which in practice go into the drawing from which the winner is selected. Others have found alternative and ingenious ways to avoid the onerous paperwork of the gaming laws requirements for running a lottery in some states.

But a few sellers have turned out not to be legitimate, or have offered unattractive properties in insalubrious areas, or were so underfunded personally that they were unable to promote the contest sufficiently well for people to even know about it. Some have failed for the sellers, who sold fewer tickets than planned, but have done well for the lucky ticket buyer who won at advantageous odds. Still, things can go badly for ticket buyers. In one case, people who bought $500 tickets for the raffle of a $400,000 house in Wisconsin discovered that the seller had defaulted on his obligations and the house was repossessed by the bank before the raffle could take place.

In spite of any potential drawbacks, in markets on both coasts where prices are so high, or in areas where prices are weakening, the idea of owning a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar home for the price of a ticket, anything between $50 and $150, seems a reasonable risk, especially since the odds are usually very good compared to, say, any of the lotteries.

One current raffle that seems particularly attractive is that being run by Scott Properties, Inc., a Delaware company that restores historic buildings and runs hotels in Spain. They are offering ten vacation properties in one of the most attractive areas of Mallorca, Spain, and at about $190 for a ticket less than $20 for each of the houses and studios on offer the odds of ten in 33,333 tickets seem an attractive wager compared to whats on offer. One of the houses, for example, is valued at around $600,000 and has rental income potential in excess of $45,000 a year, based on a six month season, which is conservative. More information can be found at www.winaholidayhomeinspain.com.

So far, raffles havent taken off on a large scale, but the involvement of charities and legitimate well-founded property companies would seem to be straws in the wind for a future of more houses being offered in this pioneering and innovative way.